Pimlico redevelopment takes shape, new clubhouse planned for 2028

Pimlico Race Course is no longer a dormant track waiting for a plan. Steel and masonry are now going up on the backstretch buildings, and the old Baltimore landmark is starting to look like the construction site that will carry it toward a new clubhouse, a new grandstand and a full reworking of the grounds.

The clearest visible payoff is still a couple of years away, but the outline is coming into view. The new clubhouse, the White Palace and the park are all expected to open in 2028. The grandstand is designed for 5,000 seats, along with hospitality suites, a restaurant, a sports bar, a sportsbook and festival space, turning Pimlico into something closer to a year-round entertainment complex than a one-day racing venue.

For now, the work means next year’s Preakness will still depend on temporary seating while the larger rebuild continues. Preakness 151 was moved to Laurel Park during demolition, and racing and training have shifted there while Pimlico is rebuilt. Demolition of structural barns and outbuildings began July 24, 2025, after the 150th Preakness Stakes, and the clubhouse demolition ceremony followed on Aug. 21, 2025, with Gov. Wes Moore on hand.

The project now has a firmer financial and legal structure behind it than Pimlico has had in years. Maryland passed HB 1524 in 2024, authorizing the Maryland Stadium Authority to issue $400 million in bonds for the Pimlico rebuild and a new training center. The budget also assumes about $140 million in cash from the Racing and Community Development Financing Fund. The Maryland Thoroughbred Racetrack Operating Authority was dissolved on July 1, 2025, and its duties shifted to the Maryland Stadium Authority and the Maryland Economic Development Corporation, with the stadium authority now owning Pimlico on behalf of the state.

The design team includes Ayers Saint Gross, Populous and RK&K, with Clark Construction Group handling construction management. The May 2026 update said utility infrastructure installation and related sitework would continue through the summer, while concrete foundations and retaining walls continued through the spring.

State leaders are selling the rebuild as more than a new grandstand. They say the finished facility should support more than 500 jobs and help expand racing from about 15 days a year to more than 100. That matters in Park Heights, where the promise has long been that Pimlico would bring more than race-day traffic, and where the project is now becoming tangible enough to measure in cranes, concrete and steel.

The new clubhouse will also try to preserve what made Pimlico matter in the first place. Plans call for an exhibition with artifacts, oral histories, photographs and salvaged materials, including material on the role of African American jockeys in Maryland racing history. For Baltimore, the rebuild is moving from promise to physical form, with a permanent home for Maryland Thoroughbred racing now taking shape in Park Heights.